The federal government of Honduras mentioned it had begun the method of extraditing to the USA an undocumented immigrant who was accused of killing a younger Iowa girl in 2016, a case that President Trump made a focus in his first presidential marketing campaign.
The transfer to satisfy a U.S. request to extradite Eswin Mejia comes as Honduras and different Latin American nations have sought to show their willingness to cooperate with the Trump administration.
Mr. Mejia was allegedly driving drunk when he crashed into Sarah Root’s car at a stoplight in Omaha in January 2016. He was detained and charged, however fled the nation after being launched on bond.
He was arrested on Thursday in a city about 125 miles northwest of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, the place he was taken and appeared earlier than a Supreme Courtroom choose on Friday, in keeping with Honduran officers.
Enrique Reina, Honduras’s overseas minister, mentioned in an interview that the Supreme Courtroom had ordered Mr. Mejia’s arrest and {that a} choose would decide whether or not to grant an extradition request by the USA.
“This has to undergo a course of,” Mr. Reina mentioned, including that the Honduran authorities had obtained greater than 50 extradition requests from the USA since President Xiomara Castro took workplace in 2022.
The White Home didn’t reply to requests for remark. The State Division referred a request for remark to the Justice Division, which didn’t reply.
The Trump administration has pressured nations within the area to ship people wished by American authorities again to the USA, in search of early wins on the problems of unlawful immigration and crime which might be central to Mr. Trump’s political model.
On the identical day of Mr. Mejia’s arrest, Mexico sent 29 high cartel operatives wished by the American authorities. The group consists of Rafael Caro Quintero, a founding member of the Sinaloa drug cartel, who was convicted in Mexico of masterminding the 1985 homicide of Enrique Camarena, an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration. This week, the Trump administration additionally met with a high-level Mexican delegation to attempt to hammer out a brand new safety settlement.
Ricardo Zúniga, a retired State Division who served as its particular envoy for Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, mentioned the concessions had been a part of a broader effort by Latin American nations to showcase their efforts to focus on felony teams and unlawful immigration as Mr. Trump threatens to impose new tariffs.
“For a lot of governments within the area, having a deal the place they offer Trump what he needs and in change they’re left alone and nobody will get of their enterprise, they’re fairly comfy with that deal,” Mr. Zúniga mentioned. “Then again, they’re fairly frightened about tariffs.”
The case of Sarah Root, who was 21 when she was killed, turned a spotlight for Mr. Trump throughout his first marketing campaign in 2016. In that race, he repeatedly emphasised his plans to crack down on unlawful immigration and sought to highlight circumstances by which undocumented immigrants had been accused of crimes.
In contrast to Mexico, Honduras doesn’t face imminent tariffs. However the nation’s authorities has been keen to indicate it’s open to working with the Trump administration.
Honduras was left off Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s itinerary via Central America final month, on his first official journey, sending what specialists mentioned was a transparent message to President Castro.
Final yr, Ms. Castro moved to end a longstanding extradition treaty with the USA, and on New Yr’s Day, she threatened to expel the U.S. military from an necessary air base if Mr. Trump carried out mass deportations.
Not too long ago, the Honduran authorities has reversed course.
Final week, the nation agreed to permit its Soto Cano air base to function a switch level for deportation flights from Guantánamo. Venezuelan deportees had been flown by American authorities from the naval base to Honduras, the place they had been transferred to a flight despatched by the Venezuelan authorities.
Mr. Reina, the overseas minister, mentioned then that it was an indication of Honduras’s strengthening ties with the USA.
Honduras has additionally agreed final month to proceed the extradition treaty with the USA that Ms. Castro beforehand moved to finish. Tony García, the deputy overseas minister, mentioned in an interview on the time that Honduras hoped that doing so would result in “hotter and extra fluid relations” with the USA, “as a result of that’s been a thorny matter.”
On Thursday, the Honduran authorities introduced Mr. Mejia’s seize in a social media put up and mentioned that the “historic arrest was made doable because of the cooperation between the federal government of President @XiomaraCastroZ and the administration of President @realDonaldTrump.”
Honduras had been conscious that Mr. Mejia was within the nation for a while, in keeping with an individual aware of the state of affairs, who was not approved to remark publicly and spoke on the situation of anonymity. The Castro authorities moved to arrest him rapidly after an extradition request from the USA got here, the individual mentioned.
The Honduran authorities may nonetheless face home authorized challenges in sending Mr. Mejia again to the USA, the individual mentioned. Honduran regulation makes it tough to extradite people accused of homicide.
Mr. Mejia will stay in custody in Honduras till his next hearing in March, authorities mentioned Friday.
His arrest comes as Mr. Trump has continued to hyperlink crime to unlawful immigration, a centerpiece of his technique to construct help for his anti-immigration agenda. He has had some success. Polling throughout the newest marketing campaign confirmed that Individuals supported Republicans greater than Democrats on immigration.
Considered one of his first victories of his second time period was laws named for a 22-year-old Georgia nursing pupil killed final yr by a migrant from Venezuela who had crossed into the USA illegally. The invoice requires the detention of migrants who enter the nation with out authorization and are arrested or charged with sure crimes.
Whereas crimes dedicated by immigrants have obtained nationwide consideration, Mr. Trump additionally has an extended historical past of inflating their criminality. For the previous 150 years, immigrants general have been less likely to commit crimes than individuals born in the USA, a 2023 study concluded.
